The Gift

A professor who noticed the little things inspired one student to
become a teacher.

Last December, the obituary in the New York Times announcing
that Columbia University professor Wallace Gray had died of a heart
attack at the age of 74 took me by surprise. I had always taken for
granted that he was one of those people who had been at Columbia
forever and always would be, no less than the statue of Alma Mater
sitting on the steps of Low Library.

One of the world's foremost authorities on James Joyce, Dr. Gray was
already a legend on the Columbia campus when I arrived as an insecure
freshman in the fall of 1978. His course "Eliot, Joyce, and Pound" was
always filled to lecture-hall capacity, and he would offer, not as
braggadocio, but as a matter of fact and honesty, "I know all there is
to know about Ulysses and am going to teach you all of it."

The confidence. The mastery. The ability to be intellectual without
distancing himself from his students. I wondered whether I'd ever know
enough about anything to teach it to others. As the semester
progressed, we discussed a pending term paper. I expressed an interest
in experimenting with a creative exercise in the same way as Joyce,
who'd used Homer's Odyssey as the framework for Ulysses.
Professor Gray encouraged me to do so. Instead of having Leopold Bloom
wander through Dublin, I sent a New York City cab driver on an odyssey
of self-discovery. It was a crude attempt at fiction, to be sure, but
having a renowned professor give me the opportunity to do something
that I had never done taught me far more than writing any research
paper would have.

A couple of years later, as a senior, I was accepted into his small
seminar course. The class studied Ulysses only, each student
taking two chapters and presenting his or her research-based analysis
to the rest of the group. I was excited and honored to be in the group,
which included a bright, young classmate named George Stephanopoulos.
But then the magnitude of the task struck me. How could I possibly find
something original to say about Joyce's work—something Dr. Gray
did not already know?

When my turn came, I ran through the chapters, citing reference
materials and guiding the rest of the group in a choppy manner at best,
still not sure I would ever know enough about anything to teach it. But
at one point, I offered a personal interpretation of what seemed an
inconsequential line in the novel. Dr. Gray stopped me and asked if the
idea I'd just suggested was an original one. I told him it was, and he
was duly impressed.

Dr. Gray stopped
me and asked if the idea I'd just suggested was an original one.
I told him it was, and he was duly impressed.

I'm sure that moment was one of many later forgotten in Dr. Gray's
distinguished career, but it was life-changing for me. I realized, that
afternoon, that I did know enough about something to teach it. Years
went by, indeed a century came to an end, and I found myself in the
role of veteran teacher. I'd taught high school, middle school,
and—as much as it would have surprised that insecure
freshman—English at the college level. I sent Dr. Gray a note
reminiscing about the seminar and told him that much of what I learned
from him has, over time, been incorporated into my own teaching. Like
him, I've striven to allow students to be individuals and to take
chances, and I've always felt that being honest about who you are and
how you approach subject material is the best way to reach
students.

He wrote back, remembering our time together and, still encouraging
and supportive, added: "Given what you wrote to me about relationships
between teacher and text and teacher and student, I am confident that
you are a marvelous teacher. Besides, given your enthusiasms for life,
literature, and other people, how could you not be?"

As I looked at that letter, side by side with his obituary and a
mimeographed invitation to an end-of-semester wine party he'd given us
after the Ulysses seminar, it saddened me to know that Dr. Gray
would no longer be teaching. Then I thought again of the freedom and
the encouragement he gave me. He made me realize the value of
recognizing even the smallest contribution, and because of him, I came
to believe I could contribute to the world of academia. I thought of
these things, and I suddenly realized I'd been mistaken. Dr. Gray
hadn't gone anywhere; he lives on in what I do every day. Maybe that is
what teaching is all about.

Lou Orfanella teaches English in the Valhalla, New York, school system
and at Western Connecticut State University.

Dr. Gray wrote an extensive amount on the writings of James Joyce.
Read one of his pieces, an introduction
to James Joyce's Dubliners.

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